


Just Deserts

by Laily



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Developing Relationship, Drama, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Heat Stroke, Hurt/Comfort, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), M/M, Mutual Pining, Romance, Sick Loki (Marvel), Sick Stephen Strange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27725110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laily/pseuds/Laily
Summary: Stephen's past sins caught up with him, stranding him in the middle of the Sahara...and he wasn't alone.
Relationships: Loki/Stephen Strange
Comments: 17
Kudos: 89





	Just Deserts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [river_seine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_seine/gifts).



He should have known.

He should have stopped for some coffee before answering the distress call from the London Sanctum. It was Code Yellow, and Code Yellow meant that some coffee and arguably half a bagel could have been had. 

The disturbance reported was of a ripple in the atmosphere, some sort of grid pattern sighted in the sky over Cornwall, glimpsed one second and gone the next. 

But as far as disturbances went, no other disturbance could compare to the havoc Loki of Asgard had wreaked on his professional (and personal) life. He just seemed to know when and where to catch Stephen off-guard, and he did it so effortlessly and elegantly, the right bastard. 

Take this morning for example. Being accosted by strangers and alien supervillains in New York City was an experience shared by many New Yorkers, but when it was one who insisted on coming along to Cornwall just because the mere mention of the place had triggered a craving for something called Cornish pasties and who couldn't stop arguing about how Stephen could have bagels any day, anytime he wanted, and how there was nothing as good as an authentic, rustic, freshly made meat and swede pie...

So there you have it. Loki was a storm of disturbance. A beautiful storm, but storm nonetheless. 

One must then ask: who deserved the blame when they both got caught in the spell, a spell either of them would have noticed had they not been so engrossed in the argument if they should get a pasty, or check out the disturbance first?

“I have a feeling we are not in Cornwall anymore, Tonto.”

“Ya think?” Stephen patted the sand from his Cloak, but the more he dusted off, the more it settled. “And it's Toto, by the way. And by _by_ the way, _you’re_ Tonto, you’re the tailgater – ” 

Without warning, Loki threw a bolt of energy at him, largely harmless but no less painful as it stinged Stephen’s cheek when he barely dodged out of the way. 

“Satisfied? Am I real enough for you?” Stephen asked, his plastic smile daring Loki to pull such a stunt again. 

“Hmm. Wouldn’t you like to know,” Loki said with a smirk. Quite how he managed to make it look both mischievous and apologetic was anyone’s guess. Knowing Loki, he’d probably had enough practice over the centuries. How else could it have charmed the socks off Doctor Stephen Strange, the Greatest Sorcerer Supreme to ever live, the first moment he saw it? 

Loki waved a hand, and the first-degree burn on Stephen’s face disappeared. 

Stephen harrumphed but accepted the unspoken apology. After all, he was the reason why they were standing in the middle of the desert, mixing up pop culture references. Imaginary or not, the sun right above their heads felt real enough and sweat was starting to stick his clothes to his back. 

Even the Cloak of Levitation must have felt uncomfortable; it was now hovering in the air over their heads like a tarp blowing in the wind. It was not much, but the shade it conferred more or less protected them from the worst brunt of the scorching sun. 

“What are you waiting for? Take us back!” Loki began tapping his foot impatiently. 

Stephen concentrated. He reopened his eyes only to find nothing around them had changed. He tried to teleport again, but either his sling ring needed maintenance, or his magic GPS was not working. “I can’t.” 

Loki’s mouth worked around an outburst, but in the end only managed a sardonic, “Great.” 

Stephen caught sight of something that immediately made him pause. The tip of Loki’s boot should have made some sort of indentation in the sand, but it did not. With every tap, the sharp, rapping sound it made was as though Loki was step-dancing on hardwood, and Stephen's heart began to pound.

“What?” Loki did not like the expression on Stephen’s face. 

“We…might be the only real thing around here.”

Stephen knelt on the ground and with his bare hand, began to dig. His fingers sifted through the hot, scorching sand and before long he had dug a small pit. He waited for a bit, but it did not collapse as he had expected. 

“Hmm. Interesting.” 

“What is?” Loki growled, fast losing patience. 

“Strangely enough, I am the only one whose actions affect this reality.” 

“Well, you’re the one who’s always boasting about his prowess in protecting realities and whatnot, get me out of this one!” Loki bared his teeth. “I am not feeling particularly protected!” 

Stephen watched Loki fan himself dramatically with his spindle-like fingers. 

It seemed silly, just the thought of it, but a part of him longed to know what those fingers would feel like running through his hair. 

_Focus, Stephen, focus!_

Still on his knees, he gathered a clump of sand, fisting it tightly in his hand. He chanted the words to the Spell of Revelation in his heart and threw the sand up in the air –

Loki recoiled, but instead of finding grains of sand in his eyes, he was momentarily blinded by an iridescence reminiscent of a geyser of soap bubbles. Once the mirage receded, an ominous-looking sigil burnt the ground Stephen had taken the sand from. 

There were not many sigils in the world Loki did not recognise, but the symbol scored into the scorched earth was not one he had seen before. 

“Should have seen this coming,” Stephen murmured. “It’s a karma demon.”

“A karma demon?” Loki remarked dryly. “Is that another name for God?”

Stephen snorted back a laughter but refrained from making any wisecrack.

So he was now effectively stranded in this strange land, catapulted out of his comfort universe, presumably in direct consequence of something he had no recollection doing. With Loki, of all people. 

“But I have never committed any atrocity against any desert deity or desert lifeform of any species,” Loki bit back a moan. The heat was hammering down the back of his head, pounding away like Thor's long-gone hammer.

“Huh.”

Loki gave Strange a strange look. “Strange?”

“Funny you should say that…” Stephen said, looking too sheepish for Loki’s liking. The Sorcerer Supreme never looked sheepish. Loki would have remembered if he had; the way Stephen was biting one half of his lower lip was having all sorts of mysterious effects on him. 

“I dropped one of Kaecilius’ Zealots here years ago,” Stephen said slowly. 

“Here?” Loki raised an eyebrow. “ _Here_ here?”

“In the middle of a desert just like this one, yes.”

“One-way trip?”

“One-way trip."

“Oh my.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Loki hid a snicker in plain sight. “I knew you had it in you.”

Stephen did not return Loki’s smile. He may have been fighting for his life at the time, but he was not at all proud of what he had done. 

He suspected Loki knew that too, for now the smirk had faltered, the jest in Loki's eyes replaced by something that looked far too much like concern for it to be anything else. 

How curious. 

But more importantly, “Loki, do me a favour and get out of here.”

“Why must I invest a drop of my precious energy to undo a magic mishap I am not responsible for?” Loki grumbled. 

Stephen said nothing, his unblinking stare saying enough for the both of them. 

Loki’s bravado wavered, torn between obeying, and wanting to stay behind, inadvertently admitting he somehow cared.

He should have listened to his pride and stayed home when Thor made the passing comment this morning of how proud he was of Loki, for going to so much effort, visiting their mortal friends in New York as often as he was.

Well. Pride got him stuck here, pride was going to get him out. And maybe he would call in the cavalry once he’d had a cold drink or two if he still felt up to it; the heat was making him a little dizzy.

But Loki’s magic swirled uselessly around his ankles, dissipating into thin air like vapor. Soon it became clear that he could not have teleported a foot from where he was even if he tried. And he did, multiple times. 

“Something is tethering me here." His unease grew by leaps and bounds. "Or someone.”

“It was your idea,” Stephen sniffed. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

“Right. Put the blame on me, the victim for once.” 

There was a more pressing issue that needed looking at, now rather than later. “You don’t happen to have any water stored away in your pocket universe, do you?”

Loki stared at him as if he had just said the stupidest thing in the world. In Loki’s world he probably had, judging by the withering look of scorn on the pinched face. “Who keeps water in their pocket universe?”

Stephen sighed. “Guess we should start walking.”

Without waiting for an aye or a nay, he set off on foot. 

“So what’s the plan here, oh Great Sorcerer Supreme?”

“The human body can survive for three days without water. So I’m gonna find a way out of here, even if it takes me all the three days and then some.”

“That’s your plan?” Loki deadpanned. “Walking?”

“You’re welcome to stay here.” Stephen eyed the Asgardian prince up and down. In his all-leather get-up, Loki looked ridiculous. Magnificent, as always and in any other circumstance, but ridiculous. “You’re going to cook your insides in those. You might want to change into something lighter.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Loki shed his outer layers, discarding his heavy armor and wristguards until he was wearing nothing but his long-sleeved undershirt, made of the finest black silk. Even in his underclothing, the guy still managed to look preppy. 

Then they began walking, side by side, each lost in the silence of his own thoughts. 

Stephen scanned the area for threats, visible and invisible alike. The sooner something showed up, the sooner he could kill it...if that even was the point of this whole thing. He could not afford to be stuck on these endless plains for long. 

“You need to find an aquifer,” Loki said suddenly.

“A what?” Stephen asked, only half-listening, 

“You may see nothing but sand all around you, but there are almost always water pockets, small reservoirs, if you know how and where to look.” Loki gave him a fleeting side-glance. “I’m telling you this for your sake. You are only human.”

“Gee, thanks.”

They could have walked for as short as five minutes or as long as fifty; to Stephen's alarm, he could not tell the time for sure, which was absolutely absurd.

“Take a picture, Strange. It lasts longer.”

“Figures.” Here he was, boiling in his skin, sweat pooling in every nook and cranny, and there Loki was, not a single hair out of place, looking as perfect as a painting.

"Time is dead," Loki said loudly. 

Stephen did not speak. He could not. 

"Time is dead," Loki repeated.

"Yes, Loki, I heard you."

“Nothing is happening. We are walking in a straight line, but we are not getting anywhere.”

Stephen squinted. The horizon was a canvas of blue on nude, stretching out as far as the eye could see. “How can you tell?”

“The sun. It is watching us. It hasn’t moved.”

Stephen raised his head. The glare seared his eyeballs all the way into the back of his retinae; he could not tell where the sun ended and the sky began. 

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” he said finally. 

“Stephen.”

His heart jolted. It was the first time Loki had called him by his given name ever since they were thrown into this predicament together. “Yeah?”

“I hate you.”

“Okay, Loki.”

“I really hate you.” Loki’s voice cracked into a half-laugh, half-sob at the end.

Against his volition, Stephen’s hand reached out to touch Loki’s shoulder where it lingered awkwardly for a few seconds. “Let’s save some for the walk back, okay?”

A soft mutter, “I am not going to make it back.”

Loki feared he may have said too much when Stephen gave him an odd look; he should, therefore, change the subject. “I don’t even know where we’re walking _to._ ”

“There must be a wall.”

"A wall?" Loki echoed.

He thought of the tapping sound of Loki's boots. 

"This is a stage. With only one audience." It was only an educated guess, but he was seldom wrong. "I bet there are walls."

“Oh, like in that movie.”

Loki, engaging in empty talk. That, Stephen could do. Not much of it, but enough to get by. “What movie?”

“Thor made me watch it once.” Loki frowned. “That bit at the end, when the guy escaped his fake life? When he took his last bow to the real world who’d been watching him since the day he was born? ‘Oh, in case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night’!”

“Ah. ‘The Truman Show’. That’s a good one.” Stephen nodded approvingly. Loki’s impersonation of Jim Carrey was spot-on, and suddenly he had a vision of them watching a movie together. He cleared his throat to hide his embarrassment, but he needed not have bothered, for Loki was hardly paying him any attention.

“More like ‘The, uh, S-Strange,” he said slowly, stumbling over his words. Loki cleared his throat and tried again. “The Strange and Loki Show.” 

Stephen looked at him strangely. 

But either Loki was pretending to be oblivious, or the usually perspicacious Trickster God was slipping.

“I think the heat’s getting to you,” Stephen said slowly. His sharp eyes followed Loki’s slumped back as the sorcerer prince slogged through the desert as if he was trudging through twenty inches of snow. 

Stephen’s own stride slowed. “It is, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Are you having a heat stroke?” Stephen demanded. 

“How does a heat stroke feel like here on Midgard?” Loki asked dimly. 

“Loki,” Stephen called his name warningly. “This isn’t real. It’s all in your head.”

“No, Doctor. I’m in yours.” Loki laughed. “In every sense of the word.” Then he exhaled shakily, “I’m so thirsty.” 

“Sorry,” Stephen said tightly. “I haven’t seen a 7-Eleven at any point on our outing today.”

Stephen braced himself for a comeback, but none came forth. Normally, he would be pleased at the radio silence, but Loki’s current reticence was making him really…uneasy.

Panicky might be closer to what he was actually feeling, but he was doing his level best not to encourage it. He did not want to be stuck here, wherever here was, alone. Even if the choice of companion was unsavoury. 

“Hey, maybe we should take a brea - _Loki!”_

Stephen lunged forward to catch Loki on his way down, but the Asgardian’s dead weight was too much for him in his current state. The back of Loki’s skull banged onto the ground with an audible thud, as though he had hit concrete instead of sand. 

Unable to hold his glamour now that he was unconscious, the perfect mask fell away, revealing what Loki had been hiding underneath his skin. 

Stephen cursed aloud at the sight of lips so parched they were caked with blood from the cracks, the shadows around the sunken eyes and the grey-tinged pallor. He prodded his thumb hard into Loki's exposed collarbone to rouse him, grimacing at the heat radiating from his skin. "Loki!"

Heat strokes could kill in no time at all, and Stephen was barely equipped with anything to manage any sort of medical emergency, let alone one of this magnitude. 

Water. He needed to find water. 

“Levi!” The Cloak flew to its Master and hovered over Loki’s motionless form, providing him with as much shade as possible. 

Stephen stumbled away and broke into a run, his mind racing. 

He had once stranded someone out here to die. What other punishment was just, aside from offering his life in return as penance?

If his life was forfeit, then why was Loki here at all?

Unless…it was not punishment that the karma deity wanted. 

What was the opposite of death, if not _life?_

What if instead of sacrificing a life, the real test was to save one instead?

He should have paid more attention all those hours spent half-watching survival shows on National Geographic with Wong – what had Loki said? An aquifer?

Where there was life, there should be water. Where there was water, there would be life.

And suddenly from a good fifty yards away, he spotted it. A single flower, swaying in the breeze. It bloomed proud and white, a survivor. 

It was a _Hesperocallis._ A desert lily.

Stephen quickened his pace. He dropped to his knees next to the plant and patted the ground. His heart soared when his hand came away damp. He began digging. 

He had no inkling of how much time had passed, but after what felt like an eternity, exhaustion took over and Stephen closed his eyes, his limbs shaking. He took a few deep breaths, all intent to keep on digging.

He opened his eyes blearily and almost sobbed in relief as water began to seep into the few feet deep hole, rapidly filling it up right in front of his eyes. 

Everything from then on passed in a blur. Stephen had gotten undressed and used his own shirt to soak up the water, alternating between sponging Loki’s body with it, and wringing it out to collect drinking water. 

“Come on, come on, come on…” Stephen watched the precious water drip it into Loki’s mouth, drop by agonisingly slow drop. He did not know how long he persevered at it, but just as he felt like he was about to pass out, Loki’s eyelashes began to flutter. 

Stephen’s heart leapt to his throat, his whole body galvanised by the familiar sight of Loki’s green eyes. But when they finally focused, it was not on Stephen that they locked on.

“Look,” Loki rasped, his voice broken, but it was the most beautiful sound Stephen had ever heard. “Your wall.”

“What?” Stephen blinked against the stinging in his eyes, and turned around to look. 

The Rotunda of Gateways stood a mere thirty feet away. And standing in the doorway was none other than

“Wong!”

Stephen collapsed onto his back as all strength left him. As Wong’s footsteps thundered across the desert and his vision began to blacken at its edges, he felt a hand reach for his. 

The spindle-like fingers felt just like he had always imagined, soft yet strong, delicate but firm. 

He gave them a final reassuring squeeze, before succumbing to the darkness.

_____________________________

Stephen awoke with a gasp, and familiar hands immediately pushed his shoulders down until he was lying on his back once more.

“Fear not, my friend. You are safe.” Wong replaced the cold flannel, wrapping it around Stephen’s neck. “You’re home.”

“How long was I out?” He croaked.

Wong shrugged. “Not long. Just a few hours.”

Stephen groaned. The room spun. He stared up at the cloister vault ceiling of his bedroom, waiting for the dizziness to pass and the memories to return. 

“Loki?” He asked quietly.

“Big Brother took him home.”

Stephen winced. “Was he very angry?”

“Who? Him or the brother?”

Stephen looked out the bay window. The Manhattan sky was as blue as ever, as blue as the desert sky with not a single storm cloud to be seen. That was a good sign, at least.

“I suppose I’ll find out soon enough,” he sighed. 

“He left this for you.” Wong handed him something wrapped in plain brown paper.

“Who? Him or the brother?”

Wong only smiled one of his infuriatingly mysterious smiles, and helped Stephen to sit up. 

Unable to contain his curiousity another minute, Stephen unwrapped the mystery gift as quickly as his shaky hands would allow. 

_The Shooting Script: The Truman Show_ , _by Andrew Niccol_ , the cover of the hardcover book read; instantly, Stephen felt something bloom in the pit of his stomach. 

Something unnameable, and wondrous, and oh so dangerous. 

He opened the book onto the first page, and where the foreword was supposed to be was something his head had not expected, but his heart must have, for why else was it singing?

Stephen leaned back against the pillow and sighed in defeat. There was no way Wong was not going to comment on the stupid smile he must be wearing on his face; his cheeks were aching from it. 

“There is one thing I don’t understand,” Wong drawled. “If you were the one trapping him inside your dreamworld, why didn’t he just kill you and make his escape?”

Wong’s grin grew wider. It really looked out of place on his usually blank face. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Stephen’s fingers ghosted over the pressed flower Loki had affixed to the page. It was a desert lily, the very same one that had saved both their lives. 

“It does.”

**Author's Note:**

> For river_seine, a reader close to my heart, one of many.
> 
> 1\. Cornish pasty is really good.
> 
> 2\. 'I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.' - Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz (1939)
> 
> 3\. Tonto is a fictional character; he is the Native American companion of the Lone Ranger, a popular American Western character created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. In the movie, he is played by Johnny Depp.
> 
> 4\. The Truman Show is a classic 1998 movie about a man whose entire existence is a reality TV show, starring the brilliant Jim Carrey as Truman and Ed Harris as the Creator aka God. 
> 
> 5\. If you're planning to travel to the deserts anytime soon...please bring water. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
